In November, will economic stress trump the future of American democracy?

Getty Images photo of voters in line.

Will any of Donald Trump’s many potential deal-breakers break the deal for citizens still undecided about whom to vote for in November? The economy, which most Americans perceive negatively, may become the biggest deal-breaker of all — but for Joe Biden, not Trump.

Facing an incredibly important presidential election, many Americans, myself included, worry about the future of this country. Our primary concern is the continuing threat to democracy, truth and core American values posed by Trump and his lickspittle allies in and out of Congress. 

In this never-ending nightmare, I beat my head against the wall wondering how millions and millions of Americans can ignore the blaring warning signs announcing exactly what to expect if Trump wins, and, alternately, what to expect if he loses and — to the surprise of exactly no one — refuses to concede. If you think his and his allies’ unhinged response after his hush-money conviction was alarming, brace yourself for their reaction if he loses in November.

Since 2016, Trump has committed what for any other candidate in any other era would be deal-breaker after deal-breaker after deal-breaker. Even his frequent fact-challenged hate-posts on social media would be enough to scuttle the campaign of nearly any other candidate. But, finally, after the 2020 election, it appeared he had gone too far. Surely, inciting a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn a legal election would be the final straw for Americans already exhausted by years of Trumpian drama.

Nope.

But what about all those felony crimes he’s facing in federal and state courts? What about his new status as a convicted felon after the recent trial in New York?

While it’s too early to tell how that conviction on 34 felony counts will affect Trump’s support, his poll numbers leading up to the trial hadn’t been dented by his multiple pending criminal cases or the civil cases already decided against him. With all that legal smoke billowing around this man, it’s a miracle that his electoral prospects haven’t expired from smoke inhalation.

MY MISTAKE AND THAT OF MANY like-minded worriers is forgetting James Carville’s famous injunction to the Bill Clinton campaign in 1992 when Clinton successfully sought to unseat President George H.W. Bush. Carville, then a strategist for the Clinton campaign, told campaign volunteers to remember three things:

The economy, stupid.
Change vs. more of the same.
Don’t forget health care.

While No. 2 remains relevant in this election and No. 3 less so, history has preserved the first rule in stone: If voters perceive a poor economy, they’ll hold it against the current president no matter who’s at fault. Sure, the U.S. economy by many measures is doing well, and President Biden doesn’t get enough credit for navigating the U.S. through a difficult pandemic/post-pandemic economy without a feared recession coming to pass. Yet, those fact-based arguments tend to dissolve in the face of household budgets struggling to stay in the black.

For many Americans on the fence about the upcoming election, one trip to the grocery store is enough to shove them off the fence and right into the lap of the former president. All those $4.99 products that just a year ago were selling for $2.99, and gadzooks, a watermelon quarter going for $6.99 at the local Kroger!

High grocery prices, stubbornly high gas prices — still around $3.59 a gallon in much of Ohio as of this writing — and other painful cost increases can blur perspectives on the aforementioned Trump deal-breakers. Sure, our democracy is under threat, Trump is a lying, lawless scoundrel potentially facing years in prison, and he’s an unrepentant authoritarian to boot. But dammit, what about two bucks for an avocado?!

THE TRUTH IS THAT MANY of the Americans who will decide this election don’t breathlessly follow the latest news reports. What they see at the grocery store, gas station, car dealer, monthly rent, and in their paychecks is a lot more compelling than the news bulletins that they half hear while going about their daily lives. A young breadwinner making $14 an hour and no benefits working the counter at an auto-parts store will pay a lot closer attention to immediate economic factors than talking heads wringing their hands about the future of democracy.

If called out for being Trump supporters, they might just respond (with a strong dose of selective/repressive memory), “I don’t like him but I sure miss his economy.” 

And face it, after years of Trumpian drama, many Americans have become jaded. His latest outrage is just, well, his latest outrage, and nothing he can do surprises anybody anymore.

The November 2024 presidential election will put James Carville’s rule to the test. How badly can the presidential challenger behave before that bad behavior overcomes day-to-day economic stressors and sends that candidate home? 

In a commentary posted on May 23, Ohio Capital Journal Editor-in-Chief David DeWitt pondered a similar question about the state of Ohio’s grossly dysfunctional politics.

In his blistering op-ed, “Ohio Statehouse Republicans Stand Determined to Prove How Toxic Gerrymandering Is,” DeWitt asked how corrupt, extreme, irresponsible and abusive must the gerrymandered Republican-dominated Ohio Statehouse get before the state’s voters finally say “enough.”

Different issues, to be sure, between presidential and Ohio state politics, but both situations do set up a defining test for voters. In the case of the presidential election, will they stand up for democracy, decency, truth and historic American principles, or will they follow the path of least resistance — got to do something about those high prices! — and let democracy fall by the wayside?

Whatever the answer, one thing’s not in doubt: We’ll find out soon enough.

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